Open Access Week 2018 – Events

October 18, 2018 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

International Open Access Week this year runs from October 22–28. We celebrate it annually at the Dalhousie Libraries, but what is Open Access Week and why should it matter to Dalhousie students and faculty?

Open Access Week provides an opportunity for academics and researchers to continue to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation that will make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research. (from the Open Access Week website) The principles of Open Access are founded on ideas of public access to publicly funded research, author rights, availability of educational resources, and affordable access to materials for educational institutions. The Dalhousie Libraries are pleased to be using these principles to bring the research activities of Dalhousie to the world.

This year’s theme is Designing Equitable Foundations for Open Knowledge. Nick Shockey, Director of Programs & Engagement for SPARC (the global Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) says, “This year’s theme reflects a scholarly system in transition. While governments, funders, universities, publishers, and scholars are increasingly adopting open policies and practices, how these are actually implemented is still in flux. As open becomes the default, all stakeholders must be intentional about designing these new, open systems to ensure that they are inclusive, equitable, and truly serve the needs of a diverse global community.”

The Dalhousie Libraries have a number of events and posts to mark this important week. Please join us at one or more of our Open Access-themed events this fall, either during Open Access Week or later.

– EVENTS –

Open Access: Tips for Planning (webinar)
When people hear or see the words “open access,” they think of open access journals and wonder how much they’ll have to pay to publish in them. This session will address some of the misperceptions around open access and help you build a plan to make your research openly available using open access journals and/or Dalhousie’s institutional repository (DalSpace). Learn how to build open access into your research plan (fees, publisher policies, retaining preprints and post prints), learn about what Open Access is and isn’t and find out how our institutional repository DalSpace can fit into your workflow. Presenter Geoff Brown is the Digital Scholarship and Government Information Librarian at Dalhousie Libraries. He manages DalSpace, oversees the libraries journal hosting service and is working to support open textbook development both at Dalhousie University and in the Atlantic region.
Wednesday, October 24/12–1 p.m.
Session delivered via Zoom
Register to get a link at: https://dal.ca.libguides.com/ScholarshipSeries

Screening of Paywall: The Business of Scholarship & Facilitated Discussion
Join us for popcorn as we screen Paywall, followed by a facilitated discussion with Scholarly Communications Librarian, Melissa Rothfus. Paywall: The Business of Scholarship is a documentary which focuses on the need for open access to research and science, questions the rationale behind the $25.2 billion a year that flows into for-profit academic publishers, examines the 35–40% profit margin associated with the top academic publisher Elsevier and looks at how that profit margin is often greater than some of the most profitable tech companies like Apple, Facebook and Google. (from https://paywallthemovie.com/)
This film screening is co-presented by the Dalhousie Libraries and the School of Information Management as part of the IM Public Lecture series. For more information, visit tinyurl.com/IMPublicLectures
Thursday, October 25/12–1:30 p.m.
Room 5053, Rowe Building
6100 University Avenue

Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon: with a focus on women’s health
Your research skills can help make Wikipedia a better, evidence-based resource for people looking for information on women’s health. This is our third Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon and the first with a health focus. The US National Network of Libraries of Medicine are spearheading this initiative and you can join in or follow along on twitter with the hashtag #citeNLM2018

The session will begin with a brief presentation and discussion about Wikipedia followed by a learning session on Wikipedia editing. Participants will then embark in an edit-a-thon working with the aid of facilitators. Participants work independently or in groups to locate and update/edit pages and citations. You must bring a laptop to the session and create a Wikipedia user account prior to the event to be able to participate.
Wednesday, November 7/10–11:30 a.m.
Carleton Campus, Tupper Link, Room 2L3
DMNB 221
Please register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wikipedia-edit-a-thon-with-a-focus-on-womens-health-tickets-51511916529

Open Library of the Humanities

October 26, 2017 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

Dalhousie is now among the supporting institutions of Open Library of the Humanities (OLH). OLH is an organization that receives funding from libraries across the globe and is dedicated to “publishing open access scholarship with no author-facing article processing charges (APCs).”

The international consortium of libraries that support OLH aims to make scholarly publishing “fairer, more accessible, and rigorously preserved for the digital future.” The OLH publishing platform supports academic journals from across the humanities disciplines, and they host their own multidisciplinary journal. Their academic articles are “subject to rigorous peer review and the scholarship they publish showcases some of the most dynamic research taking place in the humanities disciplines today – from classics, modern languages and cultures, philosophy, theology and history, to political theory, sociology, anthropology, film and new media studies, and digital humanities.”

With Dalhousie joining this growing number of libraries from around the world supporting the OLH, we are contributing to the global effort to increase open access in the humanities. As part of Open Access Week, we wanted to acknowledge the work being done by OLH and to spread awareness of their mission to “support and extend open access to scholarship in the humanities – for free, for everyone, for ever.”

Open in order to share: Having the “rights” to share

October 25, 2017 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

This post is part of a series for International Open Access Week, which runs from October 23–29.

By Roger Gillis

The recent announcement that scholarly publishing companies Elsevier and the American Chemical Society have filed a lawsuit against ResearchGate has raised concerns among those who use academic social networking sites to share their research with colleagues and the broader public. The recent incident with ResearchGate shed some light on the issue of copyright and the sharing of scholarly material in an online environment.

Understanding how one’s research can be shared ethically and sustainably online is an important consideration for researchers when it comes to sharing their publications online. When research gets published online by academic publishers, the ownership of copyright varies according to agreements that authors enter into with publishers when they agree to have their article/book chapter/publication published. In order to legally share material online through social networking sites like ResearchGate, Academia.edu, and Dalspace, authors need to own the copyright to their publications, or the material has to be published in an openly licensed format that encourages sharing (such as Creative Commons licenses), or have permission from the copyright owner (often the publisher) to do so. Unfortunately, this is not a one-size-fits-all solution; different publishers have different policies with respect to what they allow to be shared, and how they allow it to be shared. Some publishers allow sharing outside of their publishing platform, some do not, and some allow only certain versions of articles to be shared (such as the preprint or postprint versions of an article). It is important for authors to read the fine print of their publishers’ policies, to know what sharing is permitted, and what conditions they may be required to adhere to when putting their publications online.

So, how can authors appropriately share their publications online?

The first thing is to be aware what rights you have when you publish with a journal. It may be the case that some journals, such as Open Access journals, allow you to retain copyright, or assign Creative Commons licenses that allow for more easy sharing and distribution of this works. But, even these liberal licenses may come with strings attached, and limit the type of sharing that is permitted. For example, sharing on commercial platforms, such as ResearchGate, may be permitted, or sharing on a non-profit platform institutional repository, like Dalspace, might be acceptable. The first stop should be checking the publishing agreement or policy on the publication’s website, to see if they allow sharing of their publications. If it is not clear, contacting the publisher to clarify its policy is also a good step to take, as well as checking databases such as SHERPA-RoMEO, which is a searchable database of publisher policies regarding author self-archiving.

Authors often don’t realize that copyright assignment is a negotiation, and publishers don’t require wholesale transfer of copyright in order to publish works. Many authors might be presented with long, daunting, agreements filled with legal jargon, and are anxious just to have their material published but they may not give consideration to what they may be signing away. One tool that can be used is an author addendum, which allows authors to retain certain rights when publishing, such as the rights to put the publication on their personal website or institutional repository. Alternatively, publishing in Open Access journals, which tend to have less restrictive sharing and copyright policies (and many often allow authors to retain their copyright), can be an effective way to ensure that authors are able to share their research publications more broadly.

Retaining your copyright, when it comes to publishing your research (and especially with articles), enables ethical and legal sharing of your research in new places, such as institutional repositories and personal websites. Academic Social Networking sites, such as ResearchGate and Academia.edu have their advantages but are not the same as repositories, and are likely to not meet funder Open Access requirements.

Reading the fine print and knowing what rights authors retain when publishing or what the publisher’s policy is on sharing is important to being able to share your research legally and sustainably.

The Dalhousie Libraries Copyright Office provides Dalhousie researchers with non-legal advice on matters related to retaining one’s copyright as a researcher when publishing. And the Dalhousie Libraries supports the principle of Open Access in order to promote the sharing of research and widespread form.

Open Access Week 2017 Events at Dalhousie Libraries

October 18, 2017 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

International Open Access Week runs from October 23–29. But, what is Open Access Week and why should it matter to Dalhousie students and faculty?

The principles of Open Access are founded on ideas of public access to publicly funded research, author rights, availability of educational resources, and affordable access to materials for educational institutions. The Dalhousie Libraries are pleased to be using these principles to bring the research activities of Dalhousie to the world.

The theme of this years’ Open Access week this year is Open in Order to… and is an invitation to answer the question about the concrete benefits of making scholarly outputs openly available. Dalhousie Libraries has a number of events planned as a part of Open Access Week:

Public Lecture: The Future of Open Access to Research and Scholarship: Lessons from the Medieval to the Early Modern Era

Dr. John Willinsky, Stanford University
Monday, October 23, 4–6 p.m.,
Great Hall, University Club

Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon & Discussion with Gaetan Landry

A Wikipedia edit-a-thon earlier this year in the Killam.

Facilitators: Gaeten Landry, Lindsay McNiff, & Margaret Vail

Tuesday, October 24, 12–1:30 p.m. (bring your lunch)
Killam Memorial Library, Room 2902 & MacRae Library, Cobequid Room

RSVP: lindsay.mcniff@dal.ca

Current Trends in Open Access for Research Data

Thursday, October 26, 10:30–11:30 a.m.
Collaborative Health Education Building (CHEB), Room C266
5793 University Avenue
RSVP to Erin.MacPherson@dal.ca
Remote Attendance Available: A guest link will be sent closer to the presentation date.

Presented by: Erin MacPherson, Research & Instruction Librarian, Dalhousie University; Lee Wilson, Interim Service Manager, Portage/ACENET and Maggie Neilson, Librarian, Acadia University.

Open Access Week 2017: Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon & Discussion with Gaetan Landry

October 16, 2017 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

Join Gaeten Landry and Dal Libraries staff members Lindsay McNiff and Margaret Vail for a discussion of Wikipedia followed by a learning session on Wikipedia editing. Participants will then embark on an on-site “edit-a-thon,” working with the aid of facilitators to edit Wikipedia. Participants work independently or in groups to locate and update/edit pages and citations.

Gaeten Landry is a faculty member on the Agricultural Campus, and has been a Wikipedian since 2006. He has created about 175 articles and contributed over 190,000 edits. A member of the Bots Approval Group since 2011, he is responsible for overseeing the operation of bots on Wikipedia. He has written articles in The Wikipedia Signpost and is involved with several WikiProjects.

We encourage you to register for a free Wikipedia account before the event, but you can also register on-site if you prefer. Bring your own laptop if you can; a limited number will be available for use at the event.

Facilitators: Gaeten Landry, Lindsay McNiff, & Margaret Vail

Tuesday, October 24, 12–1:30 p.m. (bring your lunch)
Killam Memorial Library, Room 2902 & MacRae Library, Cobequid Room

RSVP: lindsay.mcniff@dal.ca

A Wikipedia edit-a-thon earlier this year in the Killam.

Open Access Week 2017: Current Trends in Open Access for Research Data

October 16, 2017 Marlo MacKay 2 Comments

The theme of Open Access week this year is Open in Order to… and is an invitation to answer the question about the concrete benefits of making scholarly outputs openly available.

This session will explore current trends in open access for research data; new funder expectations for data management, discoverability, and sharing; direct and indirect benefits to publishing research data openly; and a brief overview of the current tools and platforms available to help researchers share their data.

We will also provide a demonstration of the DMP Assistant: a free online tool that guides researchers through the steps of creating a data management plan that is based on best practices and compliant with funder requirements.

Thursday, October 26, 10:30–11:30 a.m.
Collaborative Health Education Building (CHEB), Room C266
5793 University Avenue

RSVP to Erin.MacPherson@dal.ca
Remote Attendance Available: A guest link will be sent closer to the presentation date.

Open Access Week 2017: Public Lecture with Dr. John Willinsky

September 25, 2017 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

Public lecture: The Future of Open Access to Research and Scholarship: Lessons from the Medieval to the Early Modern Era

Dr. John Willinsky
Stanford University

Lecture Details: Monday, October 23, 4–6 p.m., Great Hall, University Club

This talk will set the current state of open access in scholarly publishing within a larger history of access to learning that reaches back to the medieval period in the West. It will consider the role of the intellectual properties of learning played in the rise of both the university and modern copyright law. This history suggests a number of principles that might be kept in mind when considering today’s various initiatives for pursuing universal open access to research and scholarship, now that such access is being increasingly accepted as the longterm goal for scholarly publishing.

Biography: John Willinsky holds a PhD from Dalhousie University and is Khosla Family Professor of Education at Stanford University, as well as Professor (Part-Time) of Publishing Studies at Simon Fraser University. He directs the Public Knowledge Project, which develops open source scholarly publishing software and his forthcoming book is entitled The Intellectual Properties of Learning: A Prehistory from Saint Jerome to John Locke (University of Chicago Press).

Co-sponsored by Dalhousie Libraries, the School of Information Management and the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences. Part of International Open Access Week. Content originally from: https://www.dal.ca/faculty/management/school-of-information-management/news-events/information-managementpubliclectureseries.html

Events for International Open Access Week 2016

October 17, 2016 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

International Open Access Week runs from October 24–30. But, what is Open Access Week and why should it matter to Dalhousie students and faculty?

To mark Open Access Week, the Dalhousie Libraries are presenting workshops, and a film screening with SIM faculty member Ryan Whalen.

Tuesday October 25

Creating a Data Management Plan Using DMP Assistant with Sarah Stevenson
If you have a grant application that requires a data management plan and you’re not sure what’s required or where to start, this workshop is for you. We’ll use the Data Management Plan Assistant tool from Portage Network Canada for a selected case study. You’ll learn how to address the key areas of data collection, documentation and metadata, storage and backup, preservation, sharing and reuse, responsibilities, and ethics and legal compliance. This workshop is limited to 20 participants and registration is required. Contact carol.richardson@dal.ca to register. Laptops will be provided for the session.
12–1 p.m.
Science Academic Resource Centre in the Wallace McCain Learning Commons

Screening of The Internet’s Own Boy: the story of Aaron Swartz
Aaron Swartz was an internet activist who committed suicide in 2013. At the time of his death, Swartz was under federal indictment after downloading many academic journal articles through the MIT computer network from JSTOR. This screning will be introduced by SIM faculty member Ryan Whalen.
6:30 p.m.
Killam Library Program Room (fifth floor)

Thursday, October 27

Creating a Data Management Plan Using DMP Assistant with Erin MacPherson
If you have a grant application that requires a data management plan and you’re not sure what’s required or where to start, this workshop is for you. We’ll use the Data Management Plan Assistant tool from Portage Network Canada for a selected case study. You’ll learn how to address the key areas of data collection, documentation and metadata, storage and backup, preservation, sharing and reuse, responsibilities, and ethics and legal compliance. This workshop is limited to 10 participants and registration is required. Contact erin.macpherson@dal.ca to register. Laptops will be provided for the session.
1:30–2:20 p.m.
Cobequid Boardroom, MacRae Library

Open Access Week 2015

October 19, 2015 Michele Charlton Leave a Comment

Today marks the first day of International Open Access Week (October 19-25).

Wondering what Open Access Week is and why it matters to Dalhousie students and faculty?

As part of Open Access Week, Dalhousie Research Services and the Dalhousie Libraries will be presenting two information sessions for Dalhousie researchers.

Open Access

General information on researcher responsibilities and Dalhousie supports

Wednesday, October 21^st
1:00 to 3:00pm
Room 3H1, Sir Charles Tupper Building

This event will be available for distance participants at the following URL: http://dal.adobeconnect.com/drs/

Please try to connect before the session to make sure your required software (Flash Player) is up-to-date.

RSVP for this session by October 20^th to Sara Lavender at sara.lavender@dal.ca

Data Management Planning

Official launch of RDP Assistant, the research data planning tool from Portage, a project of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries

Thursday, October 22^nd
1:30 to 3:30pm
University Hall, MacDonald Building

This event will be webcast via livestream at the following link https://livestream.com/accounts/12469673/events/4408658

RSVP for this session by October 20^th to Sara Lavender at sara.lavender@dal.ca

You can also follow @DalLibraries on Twitter to stay up-to-date on everything Open Access.

Open Access and Journal Quality

October 24, 2014 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

Open Access Week, a global event now entering its eighth year, is an opportunity for the academics and researchers to continue to learn about the potential benefits of open access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make open access a new norm in scholarship and research. (from the Open Access Week website)

This week, the Dalhousie Libraries will be doing a blog post a day on different topics related to open access, as well as hosting two events.

One of the concerns that is sometimes raised about open access publishing is the possibility that open access journals are of lesser quality than non-open access journals. Journal quality is not directly tied to publishing business models and non-open access journals quality issues often make their way into public view through sites like Retraction Watch.

Selecting the best journal for an article can require some quick research whether a researcher chooses open or closed forms of publication. There are a number of straightforward checks researchers can perform to assess the quality of an OA journal.

Is the journal in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)? Is the publisher a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA)?

Most reputable open access journals will have an entry in DOAJ. Use the DOAJ listing to learn more about the journal.
If not the journal doesn’t have a DOAJ entry, consider a different journal.

Does the journal have a website? Do the links work and lead to appropriate content?

Check that the website content is credible and of a good quality.
Numerous language errors (spelling, vocabulary, syntax) and poor information design can be a sign of dubious journal quality.

Does the journal charge author processing charges (APC)? Does the website design make it easy and straightforward to determine what those fees are? Are the fees reasonable? Is the process for waiving or reducing fees clear?

A well-run journal will provide information about charges before you submit and many journals will waive APCs for graduate students.

Are the terms of any copyright transfer or author agreement available to you before submitting an article? Are the terms suitable for your purposes?

The terms should be made available to you before you submit your article.
Some journals will be open to altering the terms.

Is the journal still active and publishing a reasonable number of articles in a fairly regular pattern?

Low article counts may indicate a very new journal or can be a warning sign of poor quality.

Scan the titles and abstracts of the recently published articles. Do the articles fit within the journal’s scope and within the discipline?

Out-of-scope articles can suggest editorial problems.

Scan the list of authors. Is there a range of people publishing in the journal?

Too many articles by the same person over a couple of issues can be a warning sign.

Download and examine at least one article.

Do you have to register to read the article? If so, the journal is not fully open access.
Is the article well formatted? Poor design and layout can be a sign of quality control issues.
Is the article generally well-written? Does it meet disciplinary norms for structure, depth and currency? Poorly written or otherwise weak articles can be a sign of weak editorial and peer review processes.

Is the editorial board listed? If not, you may want to look elsewhere.

Do the board members make sense?
If in doubt, spot check to confirm identities and expertise.

10. Is the peer review process clearly explained?

A well-run journal will provide a clear explanation of what the peer review process includes and may also have specific formatting requirements to support the review process.

11. Are the editorial guidelines (submission processes, timelines, style guide) available, sensible, and easy to understand?

You should be easily request or locate all the supporting information.
Missing, confusing, or vague guidelines can be a signal of poor journal management.

This list is based on one produced by Walt Crawford; other similar lists can help in the decision-making process.

The Dalhousie Libraries will be hosting two events for Open Access Week:

Differing Perspectives on Open Access: a panel discussion
Thursday, October 23/4–5:30 p.m.
Room 224, Student Union Building

Open Access at MIT Press: OA in a large university press
Friday, October 24/1 p.m.
Room 2616, Killam Memorial Library

Archives for open access week

– EVENTS –

Public Lecture: The Future of Open Access to Research and Scholarship: Lessons from the Medieval to the Early Modern Era

Tuesday October 25

Thursday, October 27